Description

A personal intimate memoir spanning 70 years in three parts describing my childhood in the UK and New Zealand my 35 years as a New Zealand diplomat and the hundreds of amazing individuals I met on the way from farming folk to Kings Queens and Presidents Part One is the story of an English boy growing up on a farm in rural Devon and Somerset in an extended family and then aged 9 moving to rural New Zealand It covers my school years my year as a volunteer teacher aged 17 at an all boys school in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga and my year as a university student in a still divided Germany Part Two describes my career as a junior then senior New Zealand diplomat and my postings in Fiji Canada Geneva Samoa Germany and Singapore the last three as Ambassador Part Three argues that New Zealand should become a republic in the Commonwealth with its own Head of State It describes too my liberating journey from Anglicanism to freedom from any religion I have aimed to tell the memoir with a sense of humour humility and for the most part optimism